Call for Papers: Terrain Vague: The Interstitial as Site, Concept, Intervention

Call for Papers: Terrain Vague: The Interstitial as Site, Concept, Intervention

This collection of essays will focus on terrain vague�marginal, semi-abandoned space in or along the edge of the city�as abstract concept, specific locale, and subject of literary, architectural, or otherwise artistic intervention.

Ignasi de Solà-Morales defines terrain vague as land in a �potentially exploitable state but already possessing some definition to which we are external,� or �strange places� that �exist outside the city�s effective circuits and productive structures� (119, 120). Gil Doron similarly defines �landscapes of transgression� as derelict sites where �nature has started to reconstruct the built or (now) �ruined� environment. . . . space[s] that opened in the dichotomy of what we perceive as city and nature� (255).

We are particularly interested in responses to the idea, as expressed by Luc Lévesque, that ��terrain vague� offers a counterpoint to the way order and consumption hold sway over the city. Offering room for spontaneous, creative appropriation and informal uses that would otherwise have trouble finding a place in public spaces subjected increasingly to the demands of commerce, the �terrain vague� is the ideal place for a certain resistance to emerge, a place potentially open to alternative ways of experiencing the city.�

We invite submissions from a range of fields, in particular literature, architecture, ecocriticism, urban studies, cultural geography, the visual arts, and film studies. Suggested topics may include:

Site and situation
Forms of documentation
Contextual definitions/theorizations
Urban wilds
Transgression and recreation
Urban natural history
Environmental justice
Interventions

Please send abstracts of 300 to 500 words, accompanied by a brief bio, to [email protected]. Inquiries are welcome.

The deadline for abstracts is 1 June 2010.
Completed essays will be due on 1 February 2011.

Manuela Mariani, The Boston Architectural College
Patrick Barron, University of Massachusetts, Boston
�That zero panorama seemed to contain ruins in reverse, that is�all the new construction that would be built. This is the opposite of the �unromantic ruin� because buildings don�t fall into ruin after they are built but rather rise into ruin before they are built.� Robert Smithson, �A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey�

References
Doron, Gil. �The Dead Zone and the Architecture of Transgression.� City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action 4.2 (2000): 247-63.
Lévesque, Luc. �The �Terrain Vague� as Material�Some Observations.� http://www.amarrages.com/textes_terrain.html
Solà-Morales, Ignasi. �Terrain Vague.� Anyplace. Ed. Cynthia Davidson. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995. 118-23.
Smithson, Robert. �A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey.� Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings. Berkeley: U of California P, 1996.